1. Technical Field
The present disclosure relates generally to wireless communications and, more particularly, to increased bandwidth utilization.
2. Description of Related Art
In the mobile communication area, voice and data traffic is communicated over the air between wireless devices according to various communication standards. These standards have included universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS), advanced mobile phone services (AMPS), digital AMPS, global system for mobile communications (GSM), code division multiple access (CDMA), time division synchronous code division multiple access (TD-SCDMA), local multi-point distribution systems (LMDS), multi-channel-multi-point distribution systems (MMDS), Enhanced Data rates for GSM Evolution (EDGE), General Packet Radio Service (GPRS), Long Term Evolution (LTE), as well as others. One relatively recent development is LTE-Advanced (Releases 10 and 11), which uses standards developed under the 3rd Generation Partnership Project (3GPP) and is often marketed as 4G communications technology.
As more constraints are placed on mobile network operators to provide improved data throughput and quality of services, new techniques are constantly being sought to provide such improvements. Network operators and device manufacturers are seeking to offer more attractive and distinctive services and applications to enhance the end user experience, for example, often resulting in increased data usage and demands on network capacity. One way to achieve an increase in data rates is to increase the bandwidth of the down link and uplink communications.
A new technique is currently being developed utilizing the LTE standard, in which the down link bandwidth is increased via so-called carrier aggregation. For example, Release 10 under the LTE standard specifies that radio frequency (RF) carriers from one or multiple base stations (Node B) may be aggregated and jointly used for transmissions to/from a single terminal. That is, instead of a single RF carrier being transmitted from a node (such as a cell tower, Node B, etc.) to a mobile device, Release 10 allows multiple carriers from one or multiple nodes to be aggregated and transmitted down link to a single terminal. Because the use of multiple carriers increases the bandwidth of the transmitted signal, down link data rates to a user terminal or user equipment (UE) may be increased. In Release 10, uplink carrier aggregation is limited to intra-band carrier aggregation, which means that the different carriers are part of the same frequency band. Inter-band uplink carrier aggregation, where the component carriers are located in different frequency bands, is supported in Release 11.
However, in order to process a signal carrying multiple carriers, additional radio front-end circuitry and processing circuitry may be required. In simplistic terms, to process an aggregation of N number of carriers, N radio circuitry may be employed, but at a significant increase in the number of components used as well as a concomitant increase in power requirements relating to the additional circuitry.